Sunday, July 16, 2017

In the Swinging Sixties the hottest club to see a concert at was Steve Paul's, The Scene, Club in the basement of 301 West 46th Street, in NY's Theater District. The Scene had a knack for hiring rock groups right before they broke big. This list included the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Tiny Tim, Paul Butterfield's Blues Band, the Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd.

Pink Floyd The Scene

Steve Paul got his start as the wunderkid Publicist for the Peppermint Lounge. He opened The Scene in 1965 and it soon attracted an "A" list of attendees including Lizi Minnelli, Sammy Davis Jr., Andy Warhol, and Tennessee Williams.

Hendrix used to woodshed there playing long into the night, “At the Scene, Jimi would completely let himself go — playing all he knew and didn’t know, going beyond sharing — playing all,” David Henderson wrote in his Hendrix biography, “ ’Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky.” “Trying to get it all out.” In fact, the infamous 'High Live and Dirty" bootleg was recorded there which featured a very drunk Jim Morrison.

Pink Floyd The Scene

The Scene was entered by going down a flight of stairs. Jim Marron (The Scene's maitre d') described the layout as follows: "It had three rooms that focused in, like, a cross on the stage, and as a subterranean basement, it had the sort of Paris-cave-disco style to it."